Hear Me Now
by this be a dead account
Summary: Natalia laughs, not because it's funny, but because she's lonely, and wants to know if her voice can echo off water. Belarus x Liechtenstein oneshot for my Pizzazz! Light T for language and themes.


**A/N: **This is for Laura, or I Spaz With Pizzazz! Please wish her a happy sixteenth! And. Break a leg on your show this weekend~! :3 You're going to kick ass.

**Warnings!:** Homos! A lack of emotional romance! Slightly-dominatrix-Lili! A dropping of Switz/Austria!

**Credits: **Hidekazu Himaruya owns Hetalia, pas moi.

Please, please please review. I want to know how well/shittily I write! xD;

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**Hear Me Now  
( you will never be alone )**

It's a quiet night, perfect to be alone. The air is just the right temperature, and the pond looks like a dazed mirror—a little reflection on life. Natalia doesn't _like_ it, this loneliness. But it's better than being inside, back home with cold people. Cold, cold people. She laughs, not because it's funny, but because she's so damned _lonely_, and just wants to know if her voice can echo off the pond's surface.

Then, across the water, someone jumps, hearing her. Natalia squints, but the moon's only half-lit tonight. "Who's there?" She barks. Come out, come out, wherever you are.

"Li- Liechtenstein… It's Lili…"

Natalia relaxes a bit, recognizing the other girl's voice. Someone she never really paid attention to, nor ever felt the need to. But she likes listening to someone else's words. "What are you doing out here all alone?" she teases. _'I am in control. _You_ are the lonely little girl. Not me. Not ever.'_

A small, flaxen-haired girl makes her way around the pond, stepping warily over puddles she can't see. They are all blind. "My brother, Vash—" she leaps over a dead branch, "is discussing business with Mr. Roderich. He said I'd be bored, and should step outside."

The taller girl snorts through her nose, bristling as the little blonde stands beside her, unafraid. "Of _course_ they're 'talking business'," she taunts, lashing out suddenly. (_Why_ is she lashing out? She can never answer.) "You know what they do. All these secrets and lies, made up for the sake of their own privacies." She says this with intention to reveal the truth to Lili – to hurt her – and she looks down hopefully to see her damage.

But Lili's face is blank. Natalia is a bit crestfallen. The girl already knows all about the lies. She is not as innocent as she looks.

There is nothing for her to do to the girl, and disturbingly, Natalia feels unarmed. She's never been weaponless – well. She can always just break Lili's fingers off. She'll go for a real world record this time. Oh yes. _'The most brutal woman to roam the earth—broke the most bones ever—!'_

"Natalia?"

The taller looks at Lili, pulled from thoughts of violence and taking everything back. "What."

"What're _you_ doing out here alone..?"

Shit. She saw right through. Natalia blinks. "…Dying," she whispers dumbly.

To her relief, Lili doesn't try to pull a sermon on her about the sanctity of life. In fact, she seems to tolerate this answer, if not accept or understand it. "You're not well," she observes bluntly.

Natalia could kill this little girl. "I _am_ well," she argues back just as bluntly. Where does she get off, believing in her own primo attitude, anyway? (Of course—Vash's influence, damn him.)

Lili doesn't fight back after this, and they settle into a quiet, loose silence.

They watch the pond with its half-hearted moon's reflection, and stare off into it, swaying where they stand like pretty scarecrows. The wind blows on their tender girls' skin, reminding them of what they love and what they win. They clutch their arms tightly, trying to preserve warmth and shield themselves from that wind. Then, Belarus abruptly remembers why she called Lili over in the first place, even when she was probably well aware she'd want to hurt the girl. (She was right, of course.)

She looks at the head of flax next to her, and mutters, "C'mere."

The smaller girl glances at her, unsure and afraid to offend. "What?"

"Come here," Natalia repeats, surprising herself with her gracious, almost-motherly intentions.

Lili shuffles over to her, losing her cautious guard. She makes a soft sound of surprise, finding herself enveloped by two strong arms smelling of lilacs. (Funny – she'd always pictured Belarus to stink of blood and sex.)

It's like an unspoken contract. They will never say anything of this embrace again, and are thus entitled to drink all of it in that night.

Lili lets herself relax, and she becomes acutely aware. There's more to Natalia than the lilacs. Her arms – they are warm. But her breast is cold. Lili wonders what heartbreak this brave, unfaltering nation has been through. The coldness, like a disease, spreads to her own softly beating heart. She acknowledges that she is being used by Natalia for nothing more than warmth and temporary comfort. She is like a bony, shuddering teddy-bear.

Lili has never been 'used' before, much less like this. It feels good here, though. And she comes to wonder how much better things would feel to be close to another human being, in such innocent intimacy. Would they then be warm to the core of their bodies? She wants to know – for the both of them.

She gently pushes herself out of Natalia's grip, and the other girl's azure eyes flash down at her, quietly questioning if she's leaving her. _'No, I'm not.'_ Lili steps back a little, and takes in the taller nation's form. Belarus is shivering again, and her face is drawn in mild suspicion.

There is no time to evaluate and think things through. Lili walks back to Natalia. She does not miss the expression of veiled relief. Reaching up her small, skinny fingers, the girl latches them onto the other's taller shoulders, pushing her kindly to the ground.

Belarus, curious and grudgingly intrigued, lets her knees collapse under her, and she sits on the wet grass with a simple grace, watching with dangerous, slit eyes as Liechtenstein follows. Their skirts crumple messily around their thighs, bunching up in unladylike patterns. They neither notice nor care.

Lili scoots closer, her tender knees dragging over the damp dirt as she approaches the other girl, leaning in carefully. She expects her to lurch away in paranoia, maybe slice her throat open with that concealed knife. But Natalia is frozen, her eyes becoming hooded. With bravery instilled by the noble nations who raised her, Liechtenstein puts one cold hand on Natalia's cheek, and their lips collide.

It's clumsy, not at all how a gentle kiss by a (half-) moonlit pond should feel like. But none of that is important. It's the challenge, the quiet order for them to warm their blistered hands by the fireside, and return to dignity.

But Natalia wants none of that. She looks at Lili with a calm understanding, and kisses her back, sure of herself. This time, they meet with more energy and comprehension. It's not passionate, no. Far from that. They are quiet, breathing inaudibly, because even now, even _here_, they don't want to have to think about meaningless words and useless confessions.

Lili's hand takes flight from the muddy ground, and gently comes to a hesitant rest on the curve of Natalia's breast. They quake into each other's shapes, but this time, the spindle of cold that chills their bones is _good_.

Natalia presses into the girl's hand, delighted that she can feel the cool imprint of mud, staining through her thin dress and dirtying her bare skin underneath. She leans back when the small hand urges her to, and she lands slowly in more mud. Her platinum hair splays out around her head like the wings of a silver, paper windmill. She can feel the dirt tugging at her hair, and it cools her, seeping right through her dress. But she doesn't mind. Not when Lili leans over her, and kisses her again with longing in her lips.

Feeling warmer, Natalia reaches her arms toward Liechtenstein's waist, and inches her hands upward, feeling greedily for the anchoring structure of shoulders. These ones are skinny and frail, she notices, not at all broad and permanent like Ivan's. But she pushes that thought away.

Natalia wants only to be warm, to be beside this pond with company, and to tuck away old lies. She doesn't care who gives this to her, but she's been waiting for a long time to receive it. And Lili is giving it to her.

In a proud 'thank you,' Natalia cranes her head up, and kisses the flaxen-haired girl bruisingly.


End file.
